


The Price of a Cure

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Outbound Flight - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-08-31 05:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8565640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Jorj wakes briefly and realizes Thrawn has abducted him when he was resigned to dying if he could not find a cure. What does the Chiss want this time? And what is he going to do?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stickmarionette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/gifts).



> Dear Recipient, I know you asked for _Outbound Flight_ , and I tried to work from that particular level of their relationship to a degree, but the later novel _Choices of One_ provided a little more backdrop to this one as well. It is not needed to read that one, just to know that Thrawn and Jorj were working together in it again. I have posited in this that they had remained in and out of contact with one another throughout the years between.
> 
> Jorj's illness is canon, brought on by a Dark Force User that had held him prisoner. The canon breaking point is what Thrawn chooses to do about it.

Jorj Car'das was certain that he could not possibly be rational and sane to be seeing the things he was when his eyes fluttered open. A med center surrounded him, and he felt the pressure of an ox-mask, feeding him air and sedation. He tried to struggle against it, until a very blue hand reached out and gently rubbed at his eyes to close them.

"No, Jorj. You mustn't fight me on this one. I won't let you."

 _Thrawn._ Jorj let his eyes close; he wasn't going to win a battle of wits against the man in the condition he was in. Later, when he woke, he would figure it out.

That he knew he would wake was testimony to the years of communication he had maintained, often reluctantly, with the Chiss strategist.

The sedative started taking effect, and Jorj slipped into unconsciousness with but one thought: what did Thrawn need from him this time?

+++

The next time Jorj was conscious, it was to the odd sight of watching his body be taken out of the med center, even though he felt like he was physically present in a bed, with annoying things like an ox-mask and the thin garment of a sterility suit to make it clear. He shifted his head slightly, but could not find any evidence of the blue devil that had haunted his life for decades now. The med droids were doing their own thing, and the few sentient beings he saw, all human and in Imperial uniform, were not paying attention to him.

Of course that meant he reached up to disconnect the ox-mask and sat up, intent on not being in the med center one more minute than he had to be. He knew he was in no shape to escape, but his actions had attention focused on him swiftly.

"You are to remain here, Jorj Car'das, until such time as the Admiral sends for you," an officious medical officer informed him, walking over swiftly. 

"You tell your Admiral that I'm awake, then get me my clothes, and he might not reassign you to a garbage scow," Jorj growled menacingly. He was aware of the fact that he felt invigorated, that nothing hurt, that nothing was failing him due to extreme weakness. What had Thrawn done? Had that really been his body? But he was alive and being addressed by his own name, so how was that even remotely possible?

"We shall —"

The doors opened, and Jorj caught the look of annoyance on the officer's face before the man turned smartly to see the Admiral in question. Was it distaste for the Chiss man, or merely irritation at dealing with riff-raff like himself?

"Must you always be precocious, Jorj?" Thrawn asked, eyes glittering as they turned on the officer, preternaturally aware that something had happened. The man stiffly moved away, ordering someone else to find the smuggler's clothing. "You should have slept a bit longer."

"What have you done?" Jorj asked, cutting through whatever obfuscation Thrawn was trying to sell him this time.

"All in time." Thrawn's voice held the note of steel, and while Jorj wanted to balk at it, he chose to subside. It was a bit ridiculous to start an argument without his clothing after all.

+++

Fully dressed and even armed (over the protests of one of the medical officers), Jorj Car'das had walked back with Thrawn to his quarters, all in silence. The man's presence on this ship wasn't fully entrenched yet; Jorj noted several stiffened spines and thought he heard whispers as they passed. Granted, the rank of Admiral was relatively new, and the last Jorj had known, Thrawn had been headed for Wild Space.

Thrawn's quarters, however, were an immediate reassurance that his … complicated associate was quite firmly on a mission, as there was a tableaux of art projections from some culture Jorj had no idea about. The doors sealed, and Jorj vented immediately.

"What is going on, Mitth'raw'nuruodo?" Jorj asked, using the full name so that he made it clear that he was annoyed… but respectful of whatever had been done to him.

Thrawn's eyes half-closed, lazy slits appraising the Corellian with pleasure at hearing his voice pronounced properly. At least, that was how Jorj chose to take it. It was safer that way, to not presume that the expression meant anything else, no matter their past. Why they had gotten so tangled in each other during that first crisis concerning that exploration ship, Jorj had no idea. He just knew he'd never been able to let go fully, and Thrawn had chosen not to do so either.

"I made a discovery that allowed me to finally even things between us, Jorj," Thrawn stated crisply. "It took some time to come to fruition, as it has been in the works since our last meeting, one you presumed would be our last, because of your health?" The piercing red eyes moved slowly over Jorj's face, then moved down, seeing past the clothing, to the core of who Jorj was, it felt like. "I had already decided that this… displeased me."

"Meaning you had already been researching my health before that meeting, probably from the previous time," Jorj said, trying desperately to hold back the emotional cascade at Thrawn going that far. "And, if I am counting things correctly, we were even after my last favor to you. I don't appreciate being put back in debt."

"Oh, but you counted incorrectly, Jorj. As you were most likely not accounting for the opening up of resources that you gave me by teaching me your language, and how this has shaped my path, so that I may, in time, succeed against the Far Outsiders." Thrawn's confidence in that task was supreme. "Giving your health to you is of equivalent worth, especially as it opens opportunities to you and I, to chart a new pact of mutual assistance."

For the first time in his dealings with Thrawn, Jorj decided he didn't really want to do the verbal fencing and deduction, so he opted for blunt. "What are you looking for from me this time? And what assurance do I have that this health will last? I've had partial cures before; they fade."

"So they have," Thrawn said, addressing the last first. "My medical staff replaced every single organ showing damage, exchanged your entire volume of blood for fresh, and infused stem cells throughout certain systems to encourage a stronger immune system. If these efforts should fail, the process can be repeated, but my scientists feel certain the once was sufficient."

"But… wait. You cloned me?" Jorj had his answer to how that had been his body he saw being taken away.

"One that had not been allowed to develop cognitive function, but yes. I've acquired an assortment of new technologies lately." Thrawn gave a tight smile as Jorj processed that qualifying statement.

Thrawn could have allowed it to develop a brain. Thrawn probably had many recordings and could have flash-trained the clone to be a simulacrum of Jorj, and let the original die, keeping a tame version programmed to Thrawn's wishes.

Except for the fact, and Jorj knew this was key to the whole situation, Thrawn valued him for his very independence. He was uncertain why, had never understood what it was hanging nebulously between them, but he knew it was mutual. He had never, in all of his years developing his own power, ever been able to fully walk away from the Chiss strategist and warrior.

"You wish me to go with you into Wild Space," Jorj said, making the obvious deduction based on the facts he had.

"You have divested yourself of your organization. You were drifting in search of your own cure. What do you have to lose if you come with me, to apply your unique skills to the tasks I face?" Thrawn asked him, which was an answer of its own to Jorj's question.

"If I choose otherwise? I could take my organization back easily enough, after all, as healthy as I am," Jorj bluffed.

Thrawn's smile twisted up higher on one side. "Because you, my friend," and those two words were said so intimately that Jorj could no longer ignore the pulse of connection between them, "have already done that once. Now? I am offering you something new, and yet letting you have something familiar to ground you."

The Corellian knew Thrawn had this debate, this entire scenario locked up, and Jorj opted for a gracious defeat. He stepped forward, just that extra half-step to be invasive of the Chiss's space.

Thrawn knew it for the answer it was, and savored the victory by reaching out and touching the human's face once, a rare intimacy for them, before guiding Jorj over to the art, intent on getting directly to the mission. They would have plenty of time to explore the rest of who they now were, who they had always been under so many constraints, later.


End file.
